EVENTS

Illegal Actions Will Be Necessary

As Caine reports, there are already attempts to take away our legal right to protest. That doesn’t mean protest will be impossible, only that you will be more likely to be shot or arrested for it. There are lots of things we will have to do under trumpence that are or will become illegal. Interfering with immigration officers, recording racist police murdering people, protesting in hundreds of ways, stealing to feed and clothe the needy (no doubt including many of ourselves), possibly hacking communications to discover and reveal evil government actions to the people, so on. Not to sound apocalyptic – a lot of this stuff can be pretty low key. Are you prepared to risk becoming slave labor for the prison industrial complex? Not sure if I am yet, but it may get to where I don’t even have a choice. Many people have already been there.
–

Comments

Not because things are right, or go in that direction, quite the contrary. However, the US had already had presidents with police state circumstances, one of the worst kept a list of enemies. Still, even he couldn’t overwrite or dismiss the constitution or prevent his own almost impeachment. People are angry at the establishment for economical reasons, though 90% of Trump supporters are hate mongers, they did not win him the election.

It is undeniable, that the GOP has only supported or begrudgingly allowed civil liberties to exist because they did not want people be tempted by communist propaganda. So, in the last 25 years they tried their earnest to reverse it, and in some cases they did so with surgical precision. The police had overstepped its boundaries against peaceful protesters under Obama too, like the infamous pepper spraying of cooperating Occupy Wall Street attendees.

On the other hand, much of what you fear can’t happen on the federal level. As per the 8th, 10th and 14th amendments to the constitution, states decide how to police, and how to write laws that aren’t in the 3 founding documents. As such, Trump lacks what Nixon also lacked, the power to destroy checks and balances, the very thing he would need if he wanted to establish a dictatorship.

Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia were different, they both had one big dog state that dictated to others, and they also lacked traditions of democracy. Remember when the peso fell after it was announced he won? If states would decide to establish labor camps for citizens, the dollar would plummet, and plummet hard. That’s because unlike 1942, today there are no colonies anymore, people of other races can’t be viewed as savages as they did back then. That world is gone, exactly because there was WWII and the counterculture of the ’60s.

I still am in touch with people back at home, and the mood is terrifying, the majority of the public wishes detrimental treatment toward minorities, which isn’t news, admitting it publicly in large numbers is. Still, the things alive from a state based on law work, cops doing an unlawful arrest are convicted, as was the camerawoman, who tripped up refugees (on probation, but still a criminal record). The point is, there’s populism, and there’s reality. Yes, if I went back to visit, and attended a rally, I probably would be beaten by other civilians (and we’re 90% white, myself included), as I’ve seen it happen to other people.

These 4 years (hopefully only 2 come midterm elections) will be tough, that’s not even up to debate, but the legal structure of your country prevents the establishment of a dictatorship. I think you probably don’t want to hear this last part, as it might seem as whitewashing, but I’ve seen Jake Tapper’s interview with Ryan, and to me, it was clear, that Ryan put on a fake smile, and once Tapper asked the tough questions, it became apparent he doesn’t like what racist sc*mbags are doing as that’s counterproductive to their under the counter goals, as in trying to shove down policies without being seen racist, sexist or homophobic. It’s their fault they let in the Tea Party 6 years ago, the fringe got into the White House on their backs.

There is one thing, where we differ, thankfully to your benefit, at least on the federal level: my kin has adopted democracy 25 years ago, and people are willing to protest vote for someone they don’t like so that “their guy” doesn’t get in. In this election, the ones deciding did so, because they want to live better, and if the Donald doesn’t deliver on that until 2018, they’ll lose their current super majority.

One last thing concerning the so called health vouchers that proposes a solution akin to a single payer account. 5 years ago my private pension was blackmailed away from me, as was those of millions, because the state extorted the money and flat out said if we don’t return, not a single penny will be registered to that or social security. They promised individual pension accounts, and I’m still waiting (to mean: they lied). If you can, follow all such proposals, contact TYT (or anyone else you like) and don’t let the subject die publicly. In our situation they won, because people don’t feel a strong connection to things they don’t directly own (above all tax dollars), yours should be different.

Perhaps, but, still, illegal actions will be necessary. They already are for many people. The one specific thing I linked to an article about – the right to protest – is already significantly curtailed in many places. In most cities it’s technically illegal to do in most downtown areas, or there are designated “free speech areas” where they try to shunt them. It would be easy to pass laws restricting or banning large protests altogether because it’s hard for one to defend them to the politically disinterested (most). To those people, protests are just “those unnecessary things that slow traffic.” The Washington state senator quoted in the article used that language (and then some), for example.

So if you want to make a real impactful protest these days, you’re already pushing the limits of – or breaking – the law. That’s to say nothing of all the non-reporting-of-undocumented-workers people do here every day. We break the law when we have to. We’re going to have to.

To the first reply, I think you are failing to fully consider the ramifications of Trump’s Supreme Court appointments. He’s already got one in the barrel and one, possibly two, before his term is up. These are lifetime appointments. Yes, they can be impeached but that has only happened once (1804) and it was not successful. The GOP will make a lot of allowances to get justices in that will allow the dismantling of abortion protection, equal rights for women and LGBTQ folks, remove voting rights protections, and enshrine corporate oligarchy. This is precisely as dire a situation as GAS had presented if not more so.

agender- i’m not sure how civil my resistance feelings are at the moment. it’s a weird situation in the US because the right wing is so gun obsessed and armed to the gillz that it has a serious ability to shake one’s resolve in the pacificism department. lately i’ve been liking a lot of what Antifa has to say, and they advocate some violence, so eehhhhhh i know violence is bad but i haven’t written it off completely yet myself. when i’m out in public i find myself anticipating a chance to stomp a nazi. i don’t know what’s coming. i wanna calm down, but i also reeeeally wanna make racists fear that white people will straightup destroy them.

i don’t know how easy or difficult it is for a person in Germany to understand what it feels like to be here. urban USians are in an archipelago of civilized realms surrounded by vast oceans of brutal theofascist barbarism. not that all rural people are evil, it’s just that evil dominates those places. the brief time i’ve spent in kansas was utterly disturbing, and that was before they felt like kings of the world. personally i live in a suburb, work at a business that caters hard to that creepy demographic. we stock paranoid gun-fondling republican propaganda films in the entertainment department and fucking firearms about eighty feet away from that. meanwhile lots of my coworkers are latinx, black people, and muslim women. in the week before the election i had to sell about forty pounds of bullets to some assholes who heavily hinted they would go on a killing spree if Clinton won.

it’s a constant static of danger underneath our day-to-day lives. maybe it doesn’t blow up for most of us, but it has for some and it will happen again. really don’t know what to do except be there for the vulnerable when the soup goes down.

Great American Satan – of course I cannot know – and therefore cannot prescribe anything.
A situation with overarmed police AND gunfondling groups and individuals – your situation would have me panicked a long time ago!!!
But your Antifa link is exactly what I mean – expect tries to curb that and similar discussions (and unfortunately also the opposite, agents provocateurs). I did not use a narrow definition of “civil resistance”, I wanted to advise you against that “ehhhhhh i know violence is bad”thing, it is useless, moralizing instead of thinking.
What I do know is that it is extremely difficult to keep cool in a dangerous situation.
To know for what you would be willing to die and how those nearest to you feel about this could be useful (this changes in time), and perhaps I should be brief: trust your gut feeling.
Solidarity!!!!